Flash fiction project: one dark story per day, all the way through October, each one based on one normal thing gone wrong. More of this year’s stories here. You can find last year’s stories here, or at Amazon as October Nights.

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Normal thing: Board games

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HAUNTED BY GASLIGHT

“Hurry up, roll. It’s your move.”

“I’m reading the rules.”

“I already explained them to you.”

[Laughter.] “Yeah, at length. But I told you, I didn’t understand.”

“But I already explained them to you.”

“I prefer to read them for myself.”

“I don’t see why. I spent all that time going through them, then condensing them down to—”

“You’re wrong about the clue cards, by the way. It says right here.”

“I am not.”

“Look. Right here. It says—”

“That’s not what it means. Look on this page—”

Do you want to play? It’s a new game we’re testing, called Horror by Gaslight.

I thought it was called Haunted by Gaslight. Wasn’t that what you called it yesterday?

No, it’s Horror by Gaslight. See? Right here on the top of the instruction sheet.

I find out later, from the Kickstarter, that the rule book—actually, there were two—was written that way on purpose.